By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 23,
2012
“And blessed is she who believed that
there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." (Luke
1:45 NRS).
Hope sings! As poet Emily Dickerson once wrote: “Hope is the thing with feathers that
perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at
all.” The music of hope is central to all our
lives. The music of hope can lift us
beyond what we know and give us the promise of something more. Music is a
gift of song which can make us want to believe in what might, can or
will be.
When you become a Christian in the
European Church, at your baptism you are not only presented a Bible but you are
also presented a song book. Your first Christian class as a newly baptized
believer is often music lessons. Music
and the Word go together like hand and glove to bring faith, hope and love into
our lives. You just can’t imagine a Christian who doesn’t
at least try to sing and make a joyful noise.
And what would our lives be without the
sound of music? What would our faith be
without the music of the soul? What
would Christmas be without the singing of carols and the music of hope? Even for fun we must sing our way through this
time of year: Jingle Bells. Jingle Bells.
Jingle all the way. Oh what fun
to laugh and SING sleighing song tonight!
Here in the south we seldom sled at Christmas, but we always sing.
But Christmas music is much more musical
jingles. Christmas music must be sung with
depth and meaning for Christmas to truly seem like Christmas. These kinds of Christmas songs don’t rise
and fall on the charts, but they are a different kind of music; the kind we
sing over and over each year. It’s not
music that fits the times, but its music that makes the times and brings us the
faith, hope and love of the season.
We all have our favorite songs at
Christmas. For instance, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” is not a much
beloved Christmas carol, because it sounds are minor and solemn. “Silent
Night” is much loved, but even it can drag on slowly. “Joy to
the World” sounds exciting and joyful.
“Angels We Have Heard On High”
is wonderfully joyous, but it can be quite challenging with its chorus: “Gloria in Excelsis Deo”. All these great Christmas songs are solid and
enduring, but it might surprise you that one of the greatest Christmas songs
must be sung slightly out of tune.
None of us like to hear music “out of
tune”. We will accept discord and
dissonance from in the innocent voices of our children, but how could we love a
Christmas song that is always sung out of tune.
But in a figurative way, that is exactly what we find in Mary’s song, which
is our text for today. Some have put her song to music, but it hasn’t
become very popular. It is too classical,
too religious, too boring, or too sophisticated for popular consumption. But of course, that it’s not at all ‘consumable”
may be good thing. What’s isn’t
“consumed” can last, right? This may be why Mary’s song has to be sung
“out of tune” for our time, as much as it was Mary first sung it.
This ‘slightly’ out-of-tune” song has
been called Mary’s Magnificat---taken
from the first word for “magnify” as it begins in the Latin text. Mary’s song is not the only Christmas tune in
the Bible. Luke’s gospel includes three others:
The Exultation by Elizabeth, The Benedictus of Zechariah, and of course, the
angels’ “Glory to God in the Highest!”
But before we get to the “glory in the highest” we have to hear and
learn to sing this music of a God who is out of tune and out of step with how
things are in the world.
LET
YOUR SOUL MAGNIFY THE LORD
The very first note ‘out of tune’ with
our world was Mary’s own faith. In a
world of faithlessness, agnosticism, self-centeredness and cynicism, Mary was
courageously faithful. Against all that
was wrong in the world, Mary did something right. Even in a world that played to an entirely
different melody, Mary marched to the beat of a different drum. She lived the courageous, honorable, and
radical life of faith in Israel’s God.
We are told in Luke’s text that out of
all the women in Israel who could have been chosen to bear the baby who would
be the Messiah, Mary was chosen because she was ‘the favored one’. This does
not mean that Mary was better than anyone else, nor does it mean that Mary was
more important, but what it does mean is that Mary lived her life in the most normal,
honorable, decent way that allowed God to use her for this very special miracle
of grace. What was it that God found so
“favorable” with Mary? Was it her
youth, her virginity, her faithfulness to Israel’s law? Perhaps this was part of it. But what
is most clearly revealed is found in very first line of her song when she
starts: “Let my soul magnify the Lord!” By this Mary means, Let my life and my soul put the focus straight on what God wants—not
just on what I want.
This wish to exalt and magnify the LORD is
a wish still much out of tune with the world. It has always been that way. Most people march to the beat of their own
music. Most people live to amplify their
own feelings and their own ideas. But Mary’s
song is different. Mary’s song is about
how her life can amplify, magnify, intensify or augment the sentiments and
wishes of God for this world. That is
certainly not what most music amps pick up today, is it? Most live to make their own music or to mimic
world’s music, don’t they? A life lived
for the will of God gets very little attention, or is to be despised or
belittled. But despite the fact that in
so many ways Mary was unremarkable in her life, she was exceptional in her
faith. There was ‘something about Mary’
which still makes her a woman out of tune with this world. Strangely enough, it was this very peculiar quality
of personal faith that made possible the birth of the Messiah. It can be assumed that without the capacity
for the Christ to be born in her heart, Jesus would never have been conceived
in Mary’s womb.
When you think about it, Mary’s faith
was counter-cultural, but it was not exceptional. In fact, it is Mary’s very ordinary life and
simple faith that allowed for God’s grace to intercept her world. Jesus was born of Mary, because Christ was
born in Mary. As the Church has rightly
said, Mary is right revered as the very first ‘disciple’ of Jesus. We
need more people with faith that is ‘out of tune’ and out of step with this
world. We need people who are
exceptional, exactly because they are not the ‘new normal’ and not because they
are the ‘old normal’ either, but we need people who will live out the ‘radical’
and ‘revolutionary’ life that is lived above and beyond the norms and noises of
this world. There is so much in this
world that needs to be confronted, changed and challenged, but it won’t happen
from the top-down, it must come from the bottom-up. It must come from people like it did from
that young 26 year-old girl who works at a Target store in Illinois, who wrote
an email to petition and challenge the work practices of large retailers who want
to work ordinary people on holidays for their own profits. Now, that young girl named Jennifer Ann, has the
potential to be a Mary. By her sense of
sense of rightness, justice and reason, she gave birth to the kind of business
sense that needs to change in our greedy, selfish, ego-centric society.
(For details story see: http://gma.yahoo.com/retail-workers--families-disgruntled-over-interrupted-thanksgiving.html).
Or also consider that young 15 year-old-Pakistani
girl, Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in
the neck by the Taliban because she was speaking out and advocating the right
of every young girl to have an education.
People around the world are praying for her recovery, crying out for
justice against her shooters, and many are calling for her to be nominated for
the Nobel Peace prize. Why are they
doing that, because this young girl was so exceptional? No, they are doing this because this girl was
so right, so true, so sincere, and so courageous. Like Mary, she was a young, helpless girl,
willing to sacrifice herself for the truth. (http://www.voanews.com/content/un-designates-malala-day-in-honor-of-pakistani-school-girl/1543221.html). We need more
women, more young girls, and more people in general, who will sing this
way. We need people who will show and
share their faith in the things that are true, just and right. Mary sang this song that was ‘slightly out
of tune’ and so must we.
LET
THE BABY MOVE INSIDE OF YOU
Another ‘note’ about Mary’s song brings
us to ask: Why is Mary singing this way?
What motivates her faith, besides this miraculous angel who brings her
God’s message? Well, of course, it must
be the baby. When a baby is coming, your
life will focus on a lot of different things.
When people have children, they often settle down, become more serious,
or they sing loud and clear, “God, help me!”
Mary ought to be singing this kind of song, because she is a young
woman, having a child out of wedlock.
Mary’s song may be all of this, but it
is still more. Mary is singing about God
doing a miracle through her, but it’s not just a miracle for her, but it’s a miraculous
work God will do for the world. Like
most mothers to be, she sees her child as unique and special, which makes her
feel especially blessed. What mother
doesn’t feel this way? What parent
doesn’t see their child as some kind of “savior” from all that is meaningless
and mad about the world? Can’t a child
promise to bring us all a different and better focus in life? Mary is right about this, but again, we must
realize that it’s not just her coming chance at motherhood that makes her feel
this way. When the baby jumps for joy in
Elizabeth’s womb something even more special than the conception of two
talented children is what is being announced.
These children are going to be born for a very special purpose---to
bring hope of God’s mercy, grace, and salvation into the world.
Can you still get excited about
this? Can you still feel the baby move
inside of you? I’m not talking about
having a physical child, but now I’m talking about letting the truth of God
move in us. Is there still any
life? Is there anything left that makes
you see the need for God’s truth, righteousness and justice in this world? Let me explain more of what I’m
implying. In this child that was to be
born, God is going to make music that no human voice can make alone. In this baby, God is going to fulfill his
promise, not simply a promise to bring a child to Mary, but to bring the sounds
of hope to Mary’s world. Mary is singing slightly out of tune when she
sings of her hope through this child, God “has
shown the strength of his arm; He has scattered the thoughts of the proud in
their hearts” This a very strange and “out of tune” way to
save the world, isn’t it? How does God
show his “strength” by getting “scattering the thoughts of the proud” “bringing
down thrones”, by “lifting up the lowly” and by ‘filling the
hungry with good things, while the rich go away empty”? Does
this sound like Christmas? What kind of
Christmas spirit is this?
All of us know and love the Victorian
play “A Christmas Carol” by Charles
Dickens, with its stingy and sour Ebenezer Scrooge, its ghostly and ghastly
Jacob Marley and it’s underpaid and overworked Bob Crachit. Maybe the “Grinch Who Stole Christmas” is more
popular these days, but it is Charles Dickens’ story that rings much true with
the world we know all too well. What you
may not know about is what inspired Dickens to write this story of hope for
transformation and change. Dickens
himself grew up in some very humiliating conditions which are not directly
described, but implied. When Charles’ father was briefly imprisoned
for improper business practices, this intellectually gifted young Charles Dickens
had to leave school and go to work in the factory. There he was became haunted for the rest of
his life, after witnessing firsthand the
terrible working conditions of the most impoverished areas of London and saw
the many social injustices the poor suffered at the expense of the wealthy and
well-to-do. Dickens was keenly touched
by the lot of poor children in the middle 19th century England. In May
of 1843, he was about to publish a political pamphlet entitled, An
Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man's Child"
but instead, the pamphlet would become a narrative, with the title: A Christmas
Carol, rather than a stuffy, polemical essay.
Dickens believed that this story of “good news” would be the best way to
get his message across to the people who needed to have a Christmas conversion of
their own to move away from their own greed and selfishness to become
concerned, touched and burdened about the great social and spiritual need of
his day.
What we can say about Dickens Carol, as
well as, Mary’s song, is that they were both singing a song bigger than her own
and very out of tune with how things were in the real world. But is Mary’s song, really that much off
based with how things are, or should be
today? Mary sings that the changes that
that need to happen, that should happen, or must happen, will only come when
the “strong arm of the LORD scatters the
proud in the thoughts of their hearts”.
Isn’t this still how the change must come? The great needs for change, conversion and
transformation, will never come fully and finally until people have a
conversion of mind and heart. Mary rightly
sings that if change is going to come, God will have to bring it, and it must
begin from within. What Mary sings is
out of tune with the Military options of our world. Mary sings that the great change come not by
the force of human powers, but by spiritual strength of the eternal and true
God. Peace does not come through our own human strength. This is a message that is simply out of tune.
Or is it?
LET
GOD DO GREAT THINGS FOR YOU
The final thing that is much out of tune
in Mary’s song is this hope that this baby, her baby will not only challenge the status quo of the world,
but will also change that “same ole,
same ole” world. Mary sings that by sending
this child, God will not only do “great
things” for her (v. 49) but will offer “mercy for those who fear him from generation to generation” (v. 50)
and God will “help his servant Israel in
remembrance of his mercy” (v.54).
She believes that it is the birth of this child, who will finally
fulfill God’s long standing promise of saving Israel and bringing light,
salvation, and hope to whole world.
To believe that such a promise has been,
or is being fulfilled, still takes as much faith for us to sing and it did for
Mary. Our faith in Jesus is still a
faith much out of tune with the ways of the world. That has not changed. I don’t believe it will ever change until God
finally intervenes to put all the wrongs of this world to right. We still wait on that change. We still pray, “thy Kingdom come and thy will be done”. Much like Mary, we still sing a song of hope
that is slightly out of tune, don’t we?
Is there any used to sing it? Is
there is any reason to keep believing it?
The great teacher of preachers, Fred Craddock
tells about his most difficult “convert”. He writes: “My mother took us to church and
Sunday school; my father didn’t go. He complained about Sunday dinner being
later when she came home. Sometimes the preacher would call, and my father
would say, "I know what the church wants. Church doesn’t care about me. Church wants another name, another pledge,
another name, and another pledge. Right?
Isn’t that the name of the game? Another
name, another pledge." That’s what he always said.
Sometimes we’d have a revival. The pastor would bring the evangelist and say
to the evangelist, "There’s one now, sic him, get him, get him," and
my father would say the same thing. Every
time, my mother in the kitchen, always nervous, in fear of flaring tempers, of
somebody being hurt. And always my
father said, "The church doesn’t care about me. The church wants another
name and another pledge." I guess I heard it a thousand times.
One time he didn’t say it. He was in the
veteran’s hospital, and he was down to 73 pounds. They’d taken out his throat,
and he said, "It’s too late." They
put in a metal tube, and X-rays burned him to pieces. The son flew in to see him. He couldn’t speak,
couldn’t eat. Around the room were potted
plants and cut flowers on all the windowsills, a stack of cards twenty inches
deep beside his bed. And even that tray
where they put food, if you can eat it, on that was a flower. And all the flowers beside the bed, every
card, every blossom, were from persons or groups from the church.
The Father watched his son Fred read a
card. The Father could not speak, so he
took a Kleenex box and wrote on the side of it a line from Shakespeare. If he had not written this line, I would not
tell you this story. He wrote: "In this harsh world, draw your breath in
pain to tell my story."
I said, "What is
your story, Daddy?" And he wrote,
"I was wrong." (Fred B.
Craddock, Craddock Stories, Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward, eds., Chalice
Press, 2001, p. 14.).
Who will finally be proven wrong? I guess for now, the truth remains to be seen—not
only in the world, but in us. Whether or
not Jesus is real today depends on how we want to see things. Do we look at the world only from our own limited
perspective, or do we see it as God sees it?
It’s almost funny isn’t it, and also sad, that the closer we get to God
the more Jesus makes sense. Only as we
“ponder it in our hearts” like Mary did can we find and know the truth.
Whether Jesus’ birth makes a
difference in the big, bad world “out there” Mary can’t yet know and neither
can we. But what Mary does know and can
know, and what always makes Christmas real, is that Jesus is making a
difference in her life. This child is not
just her child, but this is God’s child.
It starts with the same miracle every mother knows, but it doesn't stop there. This one poor baby, born of a peasant woman, born far away from the world’s
powers, should never have been noticed at all.
His story ought not to have been told because nothing about him should have
ever mattered. It shouldn’t have
mattered, unless, that is, the story is true. We are still telling Jesus’ story today because a helpless child came
into this hopeless world and is still the only true hope of the earth. This is a song of faith that remains very much out of
tune with our world, but its strange sound is more hopeful than any other music I know. Amen.
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